New Delhi: India may be considered a sporting minnow, but in terms of doping by its athletes, it has been ranked third behind Russia and Turkey in a World Anti-Doping Agency Report for 2013, with as many as 91 from the country testing positive for banned substances in that year.
According to the 2013 Anti-Doping Rule Violations Report released by Wada this week, Russia has the highest number of dope offenders with 212 testing positive, while the figures for Turkey and India were 155 and 91 respectively. Of the 91 Indians, 20 were women athletes.
France came a close fourth with 90 dope cheats in the report compiled by Wada based mainly on the information received from National Anti-Doping Organisations (NADOs). The comprehensive report, which dealt with testing of 207,513 samples, covered 115 nationalities and 89 sports.
If the four non-analytical Anti-Doping Rule Violations (ADRVs) are taken into account, India has 95 in total, fourth in the Wada list behind Russia (225), Turkey (188) and France (108). Russia had 13 non-analytical ADRVs, while the figures for Turkey and France were 33 and 18 respectively.
Non-analytical ADRVs refer to cases that do not involve detection of a prohibited substance by a Wada-accredited laboratory but instances like failure to submit to a test, possession, use or trafficking of a prohibited substance following an investigation by athletes and support personnel.
In all, 1,953 athletes across the globe committed anti-doping rule violations, out of which 1,687 were actually caught for using banned substances while 266 were non-analytical ADRVs).
Among sports disciplines, track and field athletes lead the Indian dope cheats with 30 (28 sanctioned after testing positive) out of a global total of 280.
Weightlifting comes second, with 19 from the discipline caught for doping, with nine wrestlers committing Anti-Doping Rule violations. Other sports which contributed in the doping shame are powerlifters (8) and bodybuilding (8), judo (7), boxing (4), aquatics (2), cycling (2), kabaddi (2), cricket (1), football (1), taekwondo (1) and volleyball (1).
